[It may appear very strange, that a disciple of Albertus Magnus should
arise in the eighteenth century; but our family was not scientifical,
and I had not attended any of the lectures given at the schools of
Geneva. My dreams were therefore undisturbed by reality; and]<But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper
and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became
their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the
eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in the
schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self taught with regard to my
favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to
struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for
knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors,> I entered
with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone
and the elixir of life. But the latter <soon> obtained my undivided attention:
wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the
discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render
man invulnerable to any but a violent death!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a
promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfillment of
which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always
unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience
and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors.

[The natural phænomena that take place every day before our eyes did not
escape my examinations. Distillation, and the wonderful effects of
steam, processes of which my favourite authors were utterly ignorant,
excited my astonishment; but my utmost wonder was engaged by some
experiments on an air-pump, which I saw employed by a gentleman whom we
were in the habit of visiting.

The ignorance of the early philosophers on these and several other
points served to decrease their credit with me: but I could not
entirely throw them aside, before some other system should occupy their
place in my mind.]

<And thus for a time
I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a
thousand contradictory theories, and floundering desperately in a
very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent
imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed
the current of my ideas.>